Crux:
“We will be arguing that structures don’t grow ministry any more than trellises grow vines, and that most churches need to make a conscious shift – away from erecting and maintaining structures, and toward growing people who are disciple-making disciples of Christ.” (17, 99)
Key Terms:
- Vine: Vine work is preaching the gospel and the word, conversion and growth in Christ (8)
- Trellis: Structural work of the church. Committee’s, structures, programs, activities and fundraising efforts, etc. (8)
The Problem:
- Trellis work overtakes vine work in the church.
- This happens for several reasons:
- Trellis work is easier for us. It’s scary to share the gospel with our neighbor, it’s easy to sweep leaves at the church or bring a bunch of people into a room and have a pastor give a gospel presentation. (9)
- Trellis work looks more impressive than vine work. It’s not as appealing to Instagram a pic of discipleship than a big gathering of 100 people at an outreach event. (9)
- This happens for several reasons:
Solution:
- Pastors should train capable people in their church to be disciplers. This reproducing reproducers will grow the church in Christ more than programs could and more than just one pastor could.
Structure of Argument:
- Chapters 3-5: Scriptural foundation for re-thinking what Christian ministry actually is
- Chapters 6-12: Arguing the importance of training and how pastors and leaders play a crucial role in training. (61)
Highlights:
- 19 – Don’t use people, grow people. So convicting as I’ve often seen volunteers as vehicles to accomplish something rather than caring for them.
- 26-27 – Training those in the church to disciple others creates endless opportunities for ministry. Instead of people feeling that they don’t have what it takes to be an elder or leader in the church they see many people they can care for or encourage or evangelize.
- 42 – There are not two kinds of disciple, those who abandon themselves to His service and those who do not. The call of discipleship is the same for all.
- 71 – “The heart of training is not to impart a skill, but to impart sound doctrine.” We aren’t just training people to say the right thing, but understand the truths of the Bible deeply so they can impart it to others.
- 83 – “Numerical or structural growth is not necessarily an indicator of gospel growth.” Just because things are growing numerically doesn’t mean healthy growth is happening.
- 110 – They explain the chart of where people are spiritually and explain that you focus on the most advanced spiritually so they can help you meet the needs of the rest. This is the “run with the fast ships” mentally that teaches that if you pour into the most capable (fast ships) they will pull the rest in their wake (disciple and set a Godly example for others).
Overall, the book is a great encouragement to raise up leaders through a robust commitment to discipleship. The way they formalize the process is perhaps a bit too much. I think formalizing the system of identifying leaders could confuse the congregation by blurring the distinction between leaders and elders. Also, the overly formalized system of raising up disciples can quickly become a program itself which requires labor to maintain. However, this book is a great read and everyone in ministry will greatly benefit from it.
Mike McGregor
Mike McGregor (MDiv, Reformed Theological Seminary) is Director of College Ministry at First Baptist Church in Durham, N.C. You can follow him on Twitter at @m5mcgregor.
